WASHINGTON, DC — Federal agencies must launch criminal investigations into Mark Zuckerberg, Sheryl Sandberg, and other Facebook executives, the American Economic Liberties Project wrote in a letter to Biden administration officials Friday.

“We write to ask you to open a criminal investigation into Mark Zuckerberg, Sheryl Sandberg, and other relevant executives at Facebook for an apparently routine practice of defrauding advertisers and investors, as well as engaging in insider trading,” Economic Liberties wrote in a letter to Attorney General Merrick Garland, Federal Trade Commission Chair Lina Khan, and Securities and Exchange Commission Director Gary Gensler. “We believe, based on the evidence revealed in [recent] lawsuits, that Facebook likely used criminal activity to exploit its market power, and that key executives have likely profited in personal capacity from illicit activities…At this point, Facebook’s longstanding track record of unethical and potentially illegal behavior deserves criminal sanction.” 

The letter details five specific examples of conduct that appears to violate criminal law and compiles existing public evidence that Zuckerberg, Sandberg, and other top Facebook employees were not only aware of their potential criminal exposure but actively strategized to conceal misconduct and counter any investigations that might be brought. It als

The full text of the letter is available here.

Economic Liberties also launched a public petition urging Garland, Khan, and Gensler to initiate formal investigations, explaining that this is an opportunity for enforcers “to send a clear message that no one, no matter how powerful, is above the law.”

The petition can be viewed here.

###

The American Economic Liberties Project works to ensure America’s system of commerce is structured to advance, rather than undermine, economic liberty, fair commerce, and a secure, inclusive democracy. Economic Liberties believes true economic liberty means entrepreneurs and businesses large and small succeed on the merits of their ideas and hard work; commerce empowers consumers, workers, farmers, and engineers instead of subjecting them to discrimination and abuse from financiers and monopolists; foreign trade arrangements support domestic security and democracy; and wealth is broadly distributed to support equitable political power.